| Vanderbilt Law School | |
| Established | 1874 |
|---|---|
| School type | Private |
| Endowment | $100 Million |
| Parent endowment | $3.4 Billion |
| Dean | Chris Guthrie |
| Location | Nashville, TN, US |
| Enrollment | 640 |
| Faculty | 132 |
| USNWR ranking | 16 |
| Bar pass rate | 98% |
| Annual tuition | $45,750 |
| Website | law.vanderbilt.edu |
Vanderbilt University Law School (also known as Vanderbilt Law School or VLS) is a graduate school of Vanderbilt University. Established in 1874, it is one of the oldest law schools in the southern United States. Vanderbilt Law has consistently ranked among the top 20 law schools in the nation,[1] and is currently ranked 16th in the 2012 edition of U.S. News & World Report.
In addition to its U.S. News & World Report ranking, VLS was ranked 11th in the inaugural Vault Top Law School Guide.[2] In 2010, The Princeton Review ranked Vanderbilt 6th for Best Classroom Experience, and 6th for Best Quality of Life.[3] Most recently, Vanderbilt Law was ranked 12th in the 2009 National Law Journal job placement study,[4] with slightly over 47% of the graduating class being hired by the NLJ Top 250 firms.[5] The mean starting salary for Vanderbilt Law graduates is $145,000.[6]
Vanderbilt Law School enrolls approximately 640 students, with each entering class consisting of approximately 195 students.
The dean of the law school is Chris Guthrie, who began a five-year appointment as dean on July 1, 2009.[7]
Contents |
With total enrollment of approximately 640 Juris Doctor and L.L.M. candidates, usually no more than 195 students comprise each entering J.D. class, with approximately 40 LL.M. students each year.
The small class size has contributed to a congenial, non-competitive atmosphere. VLS has more than 40 student organizations,[8] which support many lectures, presentations and social events throughout the year. Students are also encouraged to form new organizations tailored to their personal interests, which has most recently produced Law Students for Social Justice (LSSJ), a new organization within the Social Justice Program that aims to facilitate an increasing number of students interested in pursuing public interest careers or hearing from legal practitioners on various ways to implement social justice values into their practice.
Regarding career options, Vanderbilt's small class size and diverse makeup of its students contribute to a dispersing graduating body, both in terms of industry and geography. While 67.6% of the most recent graduating class (the Class of 2009) pursued law firm work, 11.2% found employment as judicial clerks, 6.4% took government positions, 2.1% accepted corporate positions, 8.5% acccepted public interest positions, and 3.2% are pursuing another graduate degree. Geographically, Vanderbilt 2009 graduates accepted positions throughout the United States, with 26.6% choosing employment in the Northeast, 14.4% in the West/Southwest, 43% in the South, 13.3% in the Midwest and 2.1% abroad.[9] 99.5% of Vanderbilt's 190 2009 graduates had jobs by graduation.[10]
This geographic dispersal, along with its lack of a class rank system,[11] has minimized competition among students for firm opportunities among different regions and different firms. Moreover, students may not compete with each other relative to other schools because of heavy firm recruiting; hundreds of firms participate in the Vanderbilt's On-Campus Interview (or OCI) program.[12] Notable firms include Skadden, White & Case, Williams & Connolly, and Davis Polk.[13]
The law school also offers a 1L OCI program in the spring semester, which typically involves more regionally proximate firms based in the Southeast.
On some Friday nights throughout the school year, various student organizations sponsor informal social gatherings known as "Blackacres," named after the outdoor courtyard on campus where the gatherings are often held.[14] The law school also has an annual auction to support its Legal Aid Summer Stipend program, which provides financial assistance to enable students to do pro bono legal work during the summer break.
Vanderbilt Law School was established in 1874, and was the first professional school to open (Vanderbilt University itself did not start its undergraduate classes until 1875).[15] The Law School's first class consisted of only seven students and eight professors, with a two-year course of study comprising the school's curriculum. William V. Sullivan was the school's first graduate and would eventually represent Mississippi in the United States Senate.
Through the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the law school remained reasonably small, and never exceeded 70 students. The law school offered a two-year departmental program, and changed locations between downtown Nashville and the Vanderbilt campus. By 1941, it had expanded into the old chapel area of Kirkland Hall on the Vanderbilt campus, but faced very limited enrollment during World War II. Classes were suspended in 1944.
Vanderbilt Law School was revived with a $1 million endowment in 1947 and experienced significant growth through the 1960s. Facing overcrowding, in 1962 it moved out of Kirkland Hall and into a dedicated Law School Building on 21st Avenue, where it currently resides.
Since then, VLS has undergone a series of renovations and expansion, notably including a $24 million upgrade under then-dean Kent D. Syverud completed in 2002.
By 2000, VLS had established a Law & Business Program, new clinical programs, multiple law journals, and an LL.M. program for foreign lawyers. At this point, Vanderbilt had greatly solidified its regional prestige and was well on its way to aggressively developing a national reputation.[16]
In 2005, Edward L. Rubin was appointed to replace Syverud as dean of the Law School. During Dean Rubin's tenure, Vanderbilt Law School significantly developed its Litigation & Dispute and Resolution Program (resulting from a $2.9 million endowment donation), established or formalized programs in Regulatory Law, Constitutional Law, International Legal Studies, Law and Human Behavior, Environmental Law and Social Justice, and increased its reputation in the field of Law and Economics by establishing a Ph.D. Program in Law and Economics based within the law school and headed by noted economis W. Kip Viscusi.
Chris Guthrie succeeded Rubin as the law school's dean in July 2009.
Vanderbilt Law School is among the most highly selective in the country.[17]
While the law school now receives approximately 4,000 applications a year, fewer than 1,000 applicants receive offers, resulting in a matriculating class of under 200. The entering class of 2014 had median undergraduate GPA and LSAT scores of 3.73 and 169, respectively.[18]
Sixty percent of the most recent entering class had graduated from college at least one year before arriving at Vanderbilt. Backgrounds of Vanderbilt law students have included experience in such fields as business, the sciences, military service, education, technology, entertainment, and public policy. Of the most recently admitted class (the Class of 2014), 44% are women and 23% are minorities; the entering class also represents 99 different undergraduate institutions, spanning 34 different states and six foreign nations.[19]
Vanderbilt's upper-level concentration programs allow students to earn a certificate in Law & Business, as well as concentrate their studies in such fields as international law [20], intellectual property law, litigation and dispute resolution, environmental law and criminal law as well as social justice. In 2005, the Cecil D. Branstetter Litigation & Dispute Resolution Program received a $2.9 million endowment through a cy pres settlement of a class action lawsuit. Vanderbilt also has programs that allow students to focus on constitutional law, regulatory law, comparative law, and law and human behavior. In fall 2011, Vanderbilt University received a $4.85 million grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation [21] for the establishment of a national MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience [22] .
In the spring of 2006, the law school announced the creation of a new program to award a Ph.D. in Law & Economics—the first program of its kind in the nation—directed by economists W. Kip Viscusi and Joni Hersch. The program admitted its first class in fall 2007 and expects its first graduate in 2012.
Vanderbilt Law School also offers a summer study program, Vanderbilt in Venice,[23] which is open to students from all accredited law schools and offers courses in comparative and international law.
The Vanderbilt Law Review is ranked 18th among general-topic law reviews, based upon the number of times its articles are cited.[24] Other journals are the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, founded in 1967, and the Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law, founded as the Journal of Entertainment Law and Practice in 1998. The recently created Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review, a new joint publication with the Environmental Law Institute, debuted in 2008. ELPAR is released each year as the August issue of the Environmental Law Reporter, one of the most widely circulated environmental law publications in the country.[25]
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||